Ashes of December
by Lily Severn
Summary: Severus Snape has loved. Is it truly better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all? Slightly AU.


**A/N:** This was written before HBP was published; therefore I erroneously (canon-wise) refer to Severus's father as a dark wizard. I know that is not true; however, in keeping with the story I have not edited that portion of the fic or Severus's history.

Ashes of December

* * *

I can see falling snow, through the window, lit by the shimmering red flames of a lone candle, flickering dismally in the panes of glass. They drifted as if they had no place to go, elated to live and delighted to die, melting into nothing. The hot wax puddles in the sill and I wipe it away, letting the smoldering remnants burn my hand. It singes, turning my fingers a soot-black. Soon it will weep and scar, then fade away. I press harder, closing my eyes and savoring the pain. Pain means existence. Haven't they figured that out yet? It is not coddling, it isn't shelter, it's assurance.

I take a quivering breath.

_You've felt the burn before, Severus, close your eyes, it's just the same..._

I lift my hand finally, my pale, slender hand, flexing my fingers and looking in awe at how little damage it has caused. Damn, if only I wasn't so resilient.

These are horrible thoughts, I know, but the shadows in my mind are thicker and of a malignant velvet that the stone walls of this castle will never understand. I have broken, shattered shards of something resembling happiness still living there, still in this beating heart. It is a brave soul that goes on without me. Someday it will become weary of all the horror and will simply collapse.

I chuckle, a sinister rumble. I am far too healthy for that to happen soon.

I hear the angst-ridden hum of mournful violins and tilt my head, knowing that the Christmas festivities have already begun. Albus, in his compassionate heart, has invited me. His cordial smile and twinkling blue eyes are endearing, but not enough to make me spend more than a mere hour in the presence of happy students and joyous professors.

I tie my cloak, lined in green for a hint of Yuletide color, and sweep to the door, managing to magic away the painful welts on my palm. This is my first chance to get rid of it before Albus's speculation makes his bushy brows lift to new heights. He looks at me as if I am a child to be admonished.

But I am not. I am a man, an adult, I have made mistakes and overcome them in more ways than there are stars out tonight. I am an enigma of existence, I recall someone telling me as I step lightly up the steps from the dungeons. The air changes here, it's fresh and warm, laced with cinnamon and flecks of peppermint. It makes me stop for a moment.

Something tingles down my spine, makes me shiver. Could it be a trace of...excitement? Am I thrilled to be here?

No. I remember the last time. The last Yule Ball where my Mark burned, where I catch the students in maddening love affairs, more than I have ever been in my entire life. When Karkaroff stared into my eyes with such malice as I never thought the Dark Lord could possess.

I straighten and push open the heavy oak doors, and am assaulted with glittering golden candles, bright orbs of red and green, an enormous pine tree scenting the hall, silver bolts of cloth draped over the mounted torches. The students are bright-eyed and rosy-cheeked, indulging in wistful adolescence, the sweet knowledge of nothing more harrowing than a failed test. The professors gesture me over, knowing that this is indeed a rare occasion. I am the bat that never ventures from his cave.

Dumbledore pats the amethyst and gold-cushioned seat next to me, and I know that he knew I would arrive in all of my onyx glory before I fully comprehended it myself. He slips a cup of brandy to me and winks. " Loosen your nerves," he says, lifting his own glass and toasting me privately.

I sip the brew, honey-gold and fiery as always. The violins are striking up a fast, cheerful Welsh carol, and I am loath to tap my foot to it, but somehow cannot help. I manage to stomach bits of food, a pudding here, lamb there, boiled potatoes when I feel myself becoming less tense.

Suddenly, the candles are dimmed and the cellos are playing now, a slow, mournful tune, which silences the hundreds of voices speaking loudly together. I tilt my head and listen to the minor chords the quartet plays, the sullen, dreary notes. It is the music that speaks to me, that which makes me relax into my chair with a half-smile.

When the plates have disappeared and the timid students rise to their feet to dance, I feel as if it is time for me to leave. I rise slowly when I feel a hand on the crook of my elbow. I turn my head sharply, glancing at the Headmaster, who is smiling at me with a mix of amusement and longing. " Sit for a while, lad," he says calmly. " It will do you well."

Grudging, I sit, a macabre smirk on my lips. " Do me well?" I growl." I hate this entire artificial--"

" I saw you grinning," Dumbledore counters with a chuckle. " You're not as cold as you'd like to think."

I cough uncomfortably, taking a tentative sip of brandy. " If you feel that way."

" I do."

I watch the students dancing awkwardly, their feet barely missing each other's, eyes locked firmly on their partner's eyes, smiling determinedly, some melting into their embrace, others gripping onto hips and shoulders as if it would miraculously gift them the ability to dance. It makes me almost give a soft laugh, but something else tugs at me.

Had I once been one of these shy young Slytherins? Stepping lightly amid silken dresses and dress robes, hoping to Merlin I didn't fall?

" You were," Dumbledore whispers. " Once."

I sigh, keeping my lips on the edge of my glass.

" You miss it," Dumbledore muses. " You miss the years of carefree youth."

" Youth is not carefree," I hiss contemptuously. " It is pain, torture, deceit, betrayal, confusion. I had all I wanted of that. Love is just one more thorn to add to the rose."

" But the rose was beautiful, was it not?" Dumbledore asks, a brow quirking. I glare at him angrily. He knows he's struck a chord, he can almost hear the dissonance.

" Beauty is blinding," I counter.

" Blindness only springs from the unwillingness to learn," the Headmaster returns. Now it's my turn, and I'm playing  
Keeper. But I've always been a Seeker. Too fast to watch and too dangerous to tangle with.

" I had nothing to learn about love," I snarl," All that I was taught is that it is useless, agonizing, and of all things...temporary." I lower my eyes, and he knows of what I speak." Not as everlasting as they'd hope it to be."

Dumbledore leans closer to the table, knowing only I can hear him." Who is 'they', Severus?"

I lower my gaze, my raven hair falling into my eyes, and whisper," Me."

Dumbledore lifts his head and nods thoughtfully. " You couldn't have expected...with the life you led..."

I nod vigorously, too irritated and ashamed now to control myself. " I know, Albus. I've been told this same tale many times over, and each time the sympathy lessens."

" You were never a man for pity," the Headmaster observes.

Too true. " Perhaps. But I was always a man for emotion," I counter, and suddenly the scene before me is blurring. Good Merlin, am I crying? How long has it been? Probably not as long as I'd like to pretend. I look away, terrified that he'll see me, more mortified at the idea of the students looking up, seeing their bastard Potions Master sobbing on the table. Dumbledore lays his hand on my shoulder, squeezing comfortingly.

" I know, Severus," he says quietly." I know it still hurts."

I shake my head. " I have to let it go." I bite my lip until I can taste my own blood. My shoulders tremble. It begins now, the downward spiral until I have to retreat somewhere dark and gloomy to collect my thoughts. I suddenly have the ache of sitting in front of my fire, in my well-worn chair, staring into the dancing, crackling crimson flames. It comforts me, more than the hand on my shoulder, more than the half-grins of a few Slytherins, more than a warm brandy or a hot cigarette...which I have not had in a good ten years, and which I do not long to relapse into.

I stand. " I'm afraid I shall have to...depart from this joyous occasion," I murmur."Thank you."

Dumbledore seems to understand as I leave and stalk down the edges of the dancers. But he never will. He can't. If he ever does, it means a great many good things have come to an end, Death Eaters are suddenly made of former Order members, and Harry Potter is dead. I shiver. I hope that never happens. But most of the time my morbid premonitions, deep within my subconscious from which they resurface once in a great while, come true in the long run. Like the loneliness I predicted for myself ages ago. It's morbid when a sixteen year old-boy knows he will live and die forgotten and alone, and can somehow come to terms with that.

I'm much too old to live out the dreams of the loving, exciting life of a married man. My chance was here, and I lost it. Like catching smoke, I believe I heard someone say once.

I'm almost to the dungeon entrance, when I look out the Gothic windows, through the lead-laden soldering and panes of colored glass. The snow is falling gently, wide white flakes blanketing the world in a mantle of crystalline perfection. It is not marred by hideous black etchings, it isn't disfigured by years of scars. It doesn't hate who it is.

I decide to venture outside, and stretching the yawning doors open, I let them close as I step through, banging with a resounding metallic clang. I take a few candid steps, letting the frigid wind stir my cloak. It's refreshing and stimulating. I look up, at the spires illuminated by the milky moon's glow. The golden light spills from the Great Hall's windows, and I'm suddenly relieved that I'm not there anymore, stifling atmosphere that it is.

I walk out a bit further, the snow crunching under my shoes. I bury my hands in my pockets, extracting the fingerless gloves I'm prone to wearing at Quidditch matches. The Forbidden Forest beckons, spiky evergreens extending toward the crushed-suede blue sky, rippling across the stars. It's a solemn backdrop for an otherwise elated night.

There's something frightening about a night ventured out into the darkness on one's own. It never frightened me, of course, I am a man of strong will and an even stronger sense of logic. What lived in the Forest in the day will still thrive there in the night, it's just a question of whether it is now the predator or the prey. I prefer to be the shadow, stealthily flitting from various places in omnipotence. The students must believe that I defy the Apparation perimeter.

I give a short laugh, complimented by the cynical twist of my lip, and silky white vapor uncoils from my mouth like smoke. Tendrils seep out and then stretch like the fingers of the dead, clawing at salvation, only to dissipate into the icy air. Some things are not meant to be revived.

Like memories.

I'm not sure what it is about this night that is so sobering. Perhaps it is looking back on chances lost, lives ripped apart, swirls of angry reds and jealous greens, the colors of the season. Maybe I'm just the miserable bastard they all think I am. If only they could really see me. The man I was, the love I had, the smile that lit my face.

For a brief moment, for a blink in The Deity's eye, I was happy.

I suppose at one point in my life I _must_ have been, all little boys have something to be excited about. It's only when the desire is quelled, splintered into a million pieces like a dysfunctional broom, that they become hateful, angry, morose. Silenced by injustice and the cold hand of one whom they'd thought to be their protector, more than Cromwell could have ever aspired to.

But the winter months seemed to change all of that. Something in my personae, some coldness, seemed to rival even the frigid temperatures outside. My friends, what little I had, left the castle, for their cinnamon-sweet beds and rosy-cheeked parents, to be adorned with gifts and smiles. They would feast, dance, sing, and be content until the New Year, after which they would return to Hogwarts, feeling a new sense of family pride and personal worthiness.

I, on the other hand, would wake to an empty dormitory, shrugging on the same robes, tattered from various accidents, one pair actually bleached in a small spot under the arm from an unfortunate potions' accident caused by a rather tumultuous quartet of Gryffindors. They lived to make my life miserable. Luckily, all but Remus returned home.

At that time, the first two years, I had no trouble with Remus. In fact, I believe had I not found his lycanthropy, had my father not demanded of me to only associate with those of the clearest pedigree and oldest family, we may have become...

What would we have become? Best mates? Hell, no. Friends? Perhaps. Mere acquaintances would suffice. He was the closest I think I've ever come to meeting my equal, in terms of family and holidays. He, too, was not accepted at home, thought to be vile and infected. I was simply hated for reasons I did not know.

But I did ask once.

My mother told me that my father, a prominent Dark Wizard, could sense something in people, when he looked into their eyes, he could see their potential, almost their destinies. In me, he saw...darkness. Death. Failure.

How prophetic, Father.

He told me I would die before I reached the age of fifty. The Time-Turner slowly spins my life away...and I'm still here. Maybe, finally, I can get some sleep.

I've had several Seers inspect this over the years, and though I despise Divination and think it's quite woolly and very easily disproved, I longed for something to dispel my fears. I needed someone to tell me my father was wrong, which, when I was younger, could never summon up the courage to do. I was a coward.

I am ashamed of what I once was, barely worthy of my mother's voice as a child, a murderer of innocents when I was a young man, and now alone and tormented as an adult. How miserable. How completely revolting.

So I searched out the wisest of those possessing the Inner Eye, all claiming to be speaking naught but the truth, as they gazed into their orbs, read the tea leaves, caressed my palms with calloused, prophetic fingers. They saw no reason to believe what my father said, but also saw no validation to _disprove_ it. I got the same answer, in the same misty voices and faraway, milky eyes. For all the incense and flickering candles I endured, I found myself at the same damned conclusion:

My future is too dark to see into.

Their reasons were pieces of sheer genius. They must gather at conventions of some sort to culminate their explanations and excuses for why they really can't foresee anything more important than the weather. Merlin, even I can determine that, and I spend endless hours in the dungeons.

So I have turned my back on the amazingly dense art of Divination, which is more of a fumbling form of Queerditch than it is an art. If the Seers were correct, back when I was eighteen and impressionable, I might have changed my life. I might have made decisions I would not later come to regret. I might not have worn the Dark Mark proudly, like a triumphant scar, but would have never burned for it in the first place.

I might smile.

I suppose there were times when I was pleasant, a young man full of vivacity and life. I must have been a cheerful little boy, curious to a fault, an inquisitive gleam in my eyes. I was told that my eyes were beautiful, a lovely deep black like the night sky, studded with a star when I smiled.

It was when I became much older that the elation faded, that the skin pulled tight like a white skull and the violet rings appeared. When I saw myself as death walking, I just hadn't closed my eyes yet.

I must have had something to aspire to. My mother told me, in the few hours she had to spare to speak with me, which was, of course, against Snape Manor rules, that when I was about three I had the ambition of becoming a Seeker for a Welsh Quidditch team, the Caerphilly Catapults. I wanted to be Dai Llewellyn, flying like a lightning streak.

Who knew a lightning streak would become a bane in my side years later?

I sniff, pulling my cloak tighter. This cold will be my demise. I chuckle. How fitting. The heartless bastard freezes to death in a snowdrift, tears stiff upon his white cheeks, stained cherry by the sharp wind. His lovely eyes open for eternity because he wants to stare death in the face.

I am not afraid of pain, nor death, nor torment. Even the eternal fire I am damned to only makes me wistful and grateful for respite. No, the only element I truly fear is the man I see every morning, whose voice I always hear, whispering, taunting. He has a job, yes, he makes good wages, he is respected, he was loved, he was feared.

How can I describe myself in such glowing terminology?

He is rotten, sour, sarcastic, masochistic, the devil incarnate. He wears his emotions under a mask of cold iron, as if he has a twin somewhere who carries on the shining life of the idolized.

But the point is, he was loved. Loved by a woman, who gave him the courage to look at himself again, made him worthy, important, cherished. He was held for the first time in his life at the age of twenty-two.

And then he lost her.

Yet I can remember the last time I danced with her, my heart beating as erratically as the song. It was winter, the snow was melting on the windows, the candles flickered, and I could not have been happier. The smells, a mingling of perfume and chocolate, were intoxicating, my eyes faceted on hers. Dumbledore must have watched proudly, thinking,_ Finally, he gets what he truly deserves._

How horrible for "him" to have lost it.

I realize I am now at the Forest's edge. How many times have I run in here, away from it all? How many times have I also been found, conscious or otherwise? I look at the spiked needles, and brush my fingers against a blue spruce. I sniff, smiling thinly. It is fresh, clean, singing to me with a voice that says, Go back in.

I shall rue the day I listen to a tree.

Yet I turn, and make my slow, deliberate way back to the castle. Brooding in the snow is not beneficial for neither one's health nor one's spirit.

The Great Hall is teeming with life yet when I enter again, letting the doors softly close and making my way down the sides, sweeping and billowing. I expect to hear thunder and the cliché crackle of lightning. The Head Table's occupants smile and wave, some watching the students with tears in their eyes. They are reminiscing again, ignorant of the vampire walking toward their table.

I watch casually for the next two hours, lulled and calmed by the sweet tingling of violin strings and the clips of feet. No one has stumbled yet from what I have seen, nor rushed from the hall, make-up smeared and cheeks flushed with tears. When the candles have burned low and the last of the couples, either too nervous or too amorous to leave, have gathered their things and departed, I nod to Dumbledore silently. It was my duty to stay as a professor, and I have done it.

The steps to the dungeons are cluttered with Slytherins, kissing goodnight and grasping each other's hand, as if tomorrow they would wake up a thousand miles away from one another. They eye me apprehensively as I near, but I wave it away, offering them a wry smile. I remember such days, wishing for it to never end. Yet, it must. My chambers call to me, hissing of sleep and more tormented dreams.

I keep a steadily burning fire, so that at any point in time, I may leave my cool, almost too cool, office and retire here. The fire is a dull red, still crackling happily but not blazing. I unbutton my cloak and long, sweeping black jacket, laying them over a chair for a House Elf to fetch. Shirtsleeves are much more comfortable, as is the leather chair I have worn away at for years, before the fire.

And against my will...I fall asleep.

When I wake, bleary-eyed and quite hungry, the fire is dead. Its master has fallen asleep, so it too, shall fade. I inhale the soft bitter smell, the charred remains of something once full of life. The ashes have gathered in the hearth. Soon the Elves will sweep them away, the dead bits of happiness.

Happiness cannot last forever, for if there was no sadness...what would existence be? Mere breath and flesh. The pain makes us human. The thorns which make us bleed also make us smile.

Ashes just have to be swept away.

* * *

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, settings, plots, themes, quotes, events, ideas, props, and other assorted items are property of J.K. Rowling. There is no money being made from the reading, writing, posting, correcting, listing, printing, or any other actions in connection with fan fiction of this fic. Any original characters not previously seen in any of J.K. Rowling's books, the movies related to the books, or in any other related medium are my property. If it any time there is another character utilizing the same name, spelling, etc., there is no connection unless verified by the author. Any attempt to use my characters must result in the author questioning me for permission before writing their fic, art, or other medium.


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